How Pee-wee, Pat, and Target Lady Were Born at the Groundlings

A ton of famous real people got their start at the Groundlings, from Phil Hartman to Melissa McCarthy. But did you know that some of the most famous comedy characters began there too? In this excerpt from Julie Miller’s extensive oral history of the legendary Los Angeles comedy troupe, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, several key members describe the characters they first workshopped on that tiny Groundlings stage.

PAUL REUBENS: I probably had eight or 10 pretty solid characters and maybe four or five of those were very popular and featured in the show. But when I [debuted Pee-wee Herman onstage], that got a completely different reaction. This was a reaction that made me think, Wow, this means something. And very quickly, I decided, “Yeah I am going to keep doing this.” Also, I came out of art school and, at the time, Cal Arts was all
about visual- and performing-arts performance, and conceptual art was very big. I kind of viewed Pee-wee Herman as partially conceptual and partially performance because nobody knew it wasn’t a real character at that time. The very first thing I did outside of the Groundlings was put on my Pee-wee suit and answer a cattle call ad for The Dating Game.

JON LOVITZ: I did my Liar piece on The Tonight Show when I was at the Groundlings. I had been working as a messenger and some guy came in the office saying that he was going to put a computer system in. I am very gullible, but it was obvious he was lying. I knew that he didn’t have a dime. He started making up all of this crap. I said, “Where are you getting your money from?” He said, “It’s a family thing. I smuggle jewels from South Africa. My aunt taught me how.” The first time I did it at the Groundlings, it was for a panel sketch. You said your name and then the audience would ask questions. So I said, “My name is Tom F. I am a member of Pathological Liars Anonymous. I am the president of the organization.”

Someone asked me, “How long have you been lying?” I said, “What are you talking about?” They told me I had kind of set it up perfectly because any answer after that will work. Even questions like, “What’s your favorite sport?” It was a simple but a great idea that I just stumbled on.

JULIA SWEENEY: Pat was based on a couple people I knew from my business/accounting world. One was a woman and one was a creepy, odd, drooling guy. I hadn’t thought about the sex of the character too much, because I thought the funny part about the character was how annoying he/she was. But when I got on stage and got into the first joke, where we don’t know if its a man or a woman, it became clear that all the jokes were about that.

LISA KUDROW: When I was doing my writers’ lab [class], my teacher said she hadn’t seen me ever do a ditzy character, and she would like to see that range. I was like, “Oh, god, torture. I don’t want to play an idiot.” But I just did this monologue that was like a Palm Springs spring break, because it was like 1988 or something. So I just played this surfer dumbs. I grew up in the Valley and went to high school with people who would get up at four and go to the beach, tick school off their to-do list, and then go back to the beach. Not the brightest people. I got into Vassar and they were like, “Vah—saar? What’s that? A trade school?” Someone seriously asked if it was a trade school. There were these girls who were really stupid and just would brag about how drunk and wasted they were and how they didn’t know where they were when they woke up. I just made fun of that.

Tracy Newman recommended me for a staged reading of this play by Robin Schiff, another Groundling, called Ladies Room. That was my first ever audition, it was for like “Airhead 1” and “Airhead 2.” And I got the part. Then the play was produced and I was in the play. And that play is what Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion was based on.

KRISTEN WIIG (2004-’05): [Target Lady] was one of the first sketches I had written by myself, and I remember I was so terrified to put it up, because I thought, “Oh god. Is this stupid? Am I going to make an ass out of myself?” I was so scared. It was based on a woman in the Burbank Target, I think. She didn’t walk away during ringing me up or anything but it was a terrible wait. It was a little bit of her voice so I just kind of went with it and exaggerated it and created this woman.